How could UCITA impact DVDs?

{Unfinished page}

Last updated 2/2/01.

Lets start with the highly likely event of DVDs being classified as computer software. After all, most DVDs have menus on them, and that is a form of software.

Scene: "In the not too distant future..."
UCITA has now passed in most of the US. You bring home your shiny new copy of Star Wars Episode III - Jar Jar wins the Clone Wars. You pop the disc into your DVD player, and instead of the usual FBI warnings and other clutter, you are presented with a license agreement that you have to agree to before the disc will play. You wade through the 10 screens of legalese, learning that you do not own the disc, you merely have a license to use it. You may not make copies, lend the disc to friends, or even watch it in the company of anyone not your spouse or an immediate blood relative. You see that your only option if you do not agree to these conditions is to return the disc to your retailer, who will, with varying degrees of politeness, tell you to get bent. You will be pointed to the policy that says defective returns only on anything even remotely software related. The situation: You're screwed.

Another scene:
You are a video reviewer for a magazine. You summarize a review thus: "The Adventures of the DVD CCAis such a complete and utter turkey I ate the disc for Thanksgiving.". You receive a letter from an attorney from StinkFilm studios advising you that you owe the studio $5 million for violating the contract you agreed to when watching the disc that forbids negative comments as a condition of watching the disc. You remember that 30-screen morass you have to wade through every time the disc starts? UCITA made that legally binding.

UCITA may end up being the best things to happen to the traditional printed paper book since movable type.